


Alpenveilchen

by TwistedWillows



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Gen, Historical Hetalia, M/M, World War II
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-02
Updated: 2016-06-04
Packaged: 2018-04-27 20:15:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 15,558
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5062540
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TwistedWillows/pseuds/TwistedWillows
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Gilbert met Ivan in the freezing Winter of 1944, in a concentration camp in Poniatowa, Poland.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. December, 1944

**Author's Note:**

> **Story has WIP title. Might change. 
> 
> Regardless, this is the beginning of an epic adventure... of angst. If you're looking for a happy ending, guys, this ain't it. No spoilers, but just a general warning. This story is going to be heavy. A serious story about a serious thing (yes, with little bits of humor here and there) but, if you do decide to stick around, welcome. I hope you enjoy.
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> Preface
> 
>  
> 
> _16 December, 1944_  
>  _Status of Germany in the war:_  
>  _Despite having the element of surprise, the German army has been defeated in Ardennes, Belgium._
> 
>  
> 
> It's cold.  
> It's cold and he wants to go home.
> 
> His breath fills the empty space and clouds his eyes from the massive snow bluffs to his left and to his right as his truck motors over a crude road. He's packing snow down under his tires and thick flakes rain down on his windshield in slow succession, a steady and unrelenting blanket. Wind is sweeping across the trees and settles new powder over the tracks to his front and to his rear and obliterates his path almost completely. There's no sign of life out here, not a single one for miles and miles. Just snow. And a lot more snow.  
> The heat in his cab is cranked up as high as he can get it but he is still shivering inside his military uniform. They told him Germany is cold.  
> Poland is cold.  
> He can hear the flaps on the canvas batting the side of his truck. Aside from these and the puttering engine, there remains no other sound.  
> The world outside is silent and empty, and he is a lonely satellite in a universe full of grey.  
> A crackle from his radio sends his heart into his throat and a static filled voice enters the truck.  
> " _Die Französisch haben verlassen. Wir können Paris jetzt nehmen. Wir brauchen mehr Wasser und haben_..."  
>  He lets out a long breath of cigarette and stairs lifelessly at the road ahead of him.  
> In two hours, he'll be at the camp. And then he can sleep.  
> The radio drones on in the background and he pushes his glasses back up on his nose. 
> 
> It's cold outside.  
> It's cold and nothing is quieter than the snow.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Gilbert meets Ivan.

At 14.00, a shape begins to clear in the distance; a large complex, with grey walls and square windows and the sickly glow of artificial lighting spilling out to get lost in swirling snow. Beyond the building are a flat expanse of yard and two other, smaller buildings, less stable with open sides and no doors, looking for all their craftsmanship as if the slightest breeze could topple them both. Barbed wire surrounds all four sides, protruding awkwardly from the frozen ground like the dried husks of a long dead rose bush. Far off in the distance still hidden by the blowing snow, there are kilometres upon kilometres of open field. Smoke rises in darkened clouds from two factory piles and merges with a lighter grey sky. Poniatowa Concentration Camp, under Commandant Arter VonTrauen. Now, Commandant Gilbert Bielschmidt.  
To the East is the Soviet Union. To the North is the unending expanse of Polish countryside and, to the West, the enormity of the Third Reich. They told him there are two gates: one to the East, and the other that he approaches now, which faces the West.  
The engine growls in a low cadence beneath his boots as he rolls into view of the watchmen. The sound of other engines kicking to life carries to him over the wind and the gates swing open to allow the passage of two army jeeps, completely identical to his own. He kills his engine with the utmost reluctance and steps out into the storm, cursing every saint he can think of and trying to control the chattering of his teeth. The cars roll to a stop in front of him and both soldiers step down to the ground, one from each jeep and followed by a man, or- Gilbert squints. _Is that... a child_?  
Something clenches like a snake coil in the pit of Gilbert’s stomach and for the briefest second, he is completely incapable of movement. Then the second passes and Gilbert shoulders his pack and steps forward to greet his escort. The two drivers salute but are quickly pushed aside, and Gilbert realizes what he had thought was a child was in reality one of the tiniest men Gilbert has ever seen. He walks like a lopsided pheasant and puffs out his chest like a peacock and Gilbert almost forgets to salute.  
“Guten Abend, General der Waffengattung,” says the driver of the first jeep. The tiny man whirls to face him and frantically waves his flaccid arms.  
“Dismissed!” He cries in a shrill yell. The drivers disappear into the cars. Wordlessly, Gilbert ducks back into his and pulls past the wrought iron gates. They swing shut behind him with a clang that reverberates through his chest and down into the soles of his feet, frozen through his boots.  
He exits the automobile for the second time and the small man is waiting to greet him.  
“War Ihr Laufwerk lange, Herr?” His German is thick with a French accent and Gilbert notices with mild irritation that the man either doesn’t know his title or doesn’t care enough to use it, but in favour of getting rid of him sooner he decides it’s not worth protesting.  
“Ja. Ich bin von Frankreich gekommen. 14 Stunden.” He’s got tiny little legs and a tiny wisp of hair covering his otherwise bald head and his miniature hands clutch his hat with a white-knuckled death grip. Everything about this man is small except for his fat stomach and massive moustache, which occupies approximately half of his face. Standing next to Gilbert, he looks like a child.  
“Sie werden alle gut hier finden. Höffentlich werden Sie keine Probleme haben, während Sie sind Kommandant.” The man abruptly stops in his tracks and turns around to fix Gilbert with a beady-eyed glare. “Vertrauen Sie niemand, dass ist wie man überlebt ein Kreig. Kommen Sie her, unsere Französisch Arme.” He leads Gilbert slowly, picking his way around the patches of ice and snow, and they stop in front of a single length of wooden fence, where three men sit and smoke cigarettes and speak some language that sounds like mush to Gilbert’s ears.  
_“Dit, vous, les mec, bouge!”_ Silence encompasses the fence. Three pairs of bleu eyes drag to Gilbert and move languidly over his figure. One by one, the men slide off the fence and stand at attention.  
“Ihre Französischmannen, Herr.” The three men salute.  
“Gut,” Gilbert’s eyes move up and down each man in turn, “Rührt euch!” Two of the three slink away to go back to their dice and wine and betting. The third, however, stays.  
“Francis.” His tiny guide does not seem impressed with the man’s presence. “ _Vous avez un question pour notre general_?” Francis leers and his eyes flash in Gilbert’s direction. Gilbert doesn’t like him. He doesn’t like the blonde hair he’s pulled into some dumbass ponytail under his helmet, doesn’t like how he reeks of smoke and old cologne, doesn’t like the bitterness around his eyes and in the yellow-toothed smile that he flashes Gilbert as he quite suddenly steps forward and leans close to Gilbert’s ear.  
When he speaks, Gilbert is startled to hear thickly-accented English.  
“And how did you end up here, _mon petit chou_? _Honourable_ discharge?” He straightens up and Gilbert’s glare is burning like charcoal in a train engine.  
“Something like that.” He hisses back. The man next to him scowls at their display and frantically flaps chubby arms.  
“ _Frrrrancis! Vas-y! Putain, qu’est-ce que l’enfer hein? Vas! Vas!_ ” The soldier grins like a fox and slips away.  
“Ignore the bastard.” The man continues, and he turns on his heel and firmly paces away. But Gilbert’s focus wanders back before he can himself and finds the French soldier in the pale bleu uniform smoking his cigarette against a wooden slat of fence. Something burns behind his eyes and his fist twitches, but when they lock eyes he forces it to uncurl. That same saccharine smile stretches the man’s mouth and his eyes dart to a spot behind Gilbert quickly before they snap back to his face- once, twice- Gilbert turns to see where he’s looking and for the first time notices that the little man leading him is wearing heels.  
For a single second he barks out a laugh. Then his escort turns in consternation and Gilbert shakes his head and clears his throat and shoots the man a disgusted glare. The moment is over and he turns to walk away. 

 

It’s not a very large room.  
Sure, there’s a bed. And… that’s about all there is, actually. The ceiling and floors are made of concrete. A single light bulb hangs from the ceiling with an iron pull chord. There are two small rectangular windows cut into the wall that overlook the camp. Gilbert goes to one of them now and studies the frosty tendrils that have crept up the sides of the building. The glass is thick, but not thick enough to block out the sounds of troops marching and the train whistle as it pulls away.  
Gilbert turns back to his bed and stashes a pack of cigarettes in his pillowcase. It’s more comfortable than the field, he tries to reassure himself. There’s a shower here. And a bed. And he has time to sit down and eat meals. That’s a luxury in of itself, of course; time is not something in abundance under the rain of enemy fire.  
Still, there’s something... missing. Gilbert sits slowly on the bed and pulls off his glasses. The room around him deteriorates into a blurred mass of shapes and colours, and he surveys it slowly. Pale sunlight is streaming through the clouds and the thick glass of his window and illuminating the bland grey concrete floor. Gilbert sees it all in a bright, whimsical blob. They’re not that bad. Surely they’re not that bad. He can see everything. He can see…  
The glasses go back on his face. Gilbert directs his gaze back out the window and watches a hawk as it circles over the snow. They’re good. He tells himself. Then he rises and goes to retrieve his luggage from the jeep.

_“Why aren’t my eyes red, brother?”_

_A mop of bright blonde hair catching in the wind, falling in front of two lidded pools of bleu._

_“Why do you always wear sunglasses?”_

_“You cover your eyes in church.”_

_His brother’s dancing, dancing and the sun catches in his hair and makes it turn gold like a halo ringing his head. His hair is vibrant, beautiful, everything about him is beautiful. He’s a child of the sun, as if he’s just stepped out of heaven to be in this moment._

_“Devil child!”_

_“My mom says we can’t hang out anymore. People might recognize me.”_

_“People’s eyes aren’t red.”_

_“They’re an odd family.”_

_“The younger brother’s beautiful.”_

_“Mistakes happen.”_

_“Not normal.”_

_Not normal._

_Not normal_

_Not normal not normal not-_

_**D** E V I L C H I L D!_

_“I like your eyes, brother.”_

 

Gilbert wakes up gasping for air choking on the heart in his throat. 

The first day brings clouds and a wind that cuts right through Gilbert’s uniform and stings the frozen flesh underneath.  
At noon, he stops to take a smoke break, and as he leans back against a prisoner barracks and pulls out his lighter it occurs to him that he is not standing there alone. He cracks one blurry eye, then the other, and waits for both to focus. Standing in the shadow cast by the barracks across from him is a tall man with fair skin and dark eyes raised to meet his own. He clutches his bowl of soup rations with a white-knuckled death grip, like he’s scared Gilbert’s going to take it from him, and- the odd thing- wrapped around his neck is a torn, pale pink rag. Gilbert flicks his lighter.  
"Don't you have work to be doing?" He raises the cigarette to his lips and inhales until he starts to cough. For a moment, the man doesn't say a word. Then, slow comprehension dawning, he smiles and nods.  
"I not have work now." He says, and something in Gilberts gut twists uncomfortably at the sound of his thick Russian accent. "I done." Gilbert feels his mouth turn down in disgust. All the same, he just stares for a brief second before letting his head at roll back and rest on the wall at his back. Technically, Gilbert is not yet the commandant. The man will walk away soon enough.  
There's no sun in the sky and there hasn't been all day and there won't be tomorrow. Gilbert hasn't seen the sun once since his arrival to Poland. Sometimes, he wonders if the Polish know what sun is. His hair is a dishevelled mess and he hasn't shaved in at least three weeks and some small part of him that he'll never admit to is whispering sweet lies into his ear about a loving mother and a trusting younger brother standing on the tips of his tippy toes, clawing at Gilbert's arm, begging him to show off that cool new trick that he could do with his big brother magic. Maybe if he ignores the voice long enough, it will just go away, or at least speak a little bit quieter. He was never fond of being overly sentimental about anything, anyway, and that man is still standing there.  
Gilbert opens one useless eye and fixes it on the blurry blob that he assumes is the same stranger as before, still standing in the shadows across from him. He lets out the breath of cancer gas that he's been holding and studies the man pointedly for a couple of seconds.  
"Russian." He says. He isn't sure if it’s a question. The stranger, however, doesn't seem to notice the hostility in his tone, because he smiles brightly and nods.  
"Yes!" The smile stays. Gilbert raises a single white brow.  
"You don't look like a Soviet." He finally says, at length.  
The Russian's eyes are open and intelligent as he responds.  
"You not look Nazi."  
Gilbert laughs and coughs out smoke.  
"Well I am a Nazi." And he proudly thrusts his swastika forward. He waits for some kind of response, but the Russian just stands and watches. A long silence passes between the two of them.  
Gilbert curses as his cigarette burns his fingers and throws the offending item to the ground, stomping what's left of it with the toe of his boot.  
He can feel the Russian’s eyes on his retreating back long after the man is out of sight.

“This is duty, Bielschmidt. This is obligation.” Gilbert is standing in the commandant’s office, which in this context refers to a room slightly larger than every other room around it that looks exactly the same, and listening to the same spiel he swears he’s been hearing on loop since he landed his miserable ass in the camp. “The goal is extermination. By the end of the war, every Jew and Soviet in Europe will lie dead on the ground. Poniatowa is instrumental to this operation, and to the success of the Führer.” The walls are concrete. The floor is concrete. There’s no glass in the window and no fireplace or pictures on the wall and the only thing that’s not concrete is the massive wooden desk sitting in the centre of the room and the wooden chair sitting behind it.  
Home sweet home. Which is funny because it’s the most comfortable home Gilbert’s had so far.  
“… are the General of this camp, Commandant, the first and last line of defence, the only thing standing in the way of the Soviet bastards of the East. Do you understand?” Gilbert doesn’t have to command his muscles to do it; he’s already saluted the very moment the man stopped his speech.  
“ _Ja Herr_!”  
“Good.” Arter VonTrauen rises from the commandant’s desk and readjusts the hat on his head. As Gilbert watches him in the pale, spectral light filtering in through the window, for the first time he sees something behind that expression, something worn and tired and so far beyond anything Gilbert’s ever experienced in his own life. Gilbert decides that war is not for the elderly.  
“There’s a lot of faith in you, Bielschmidt. You and your brother. Don’t let me down.” Fanfare foregone; Gilbert is the commandant of Poniatowa. 

_17 December, 1944  
Poniatowa, Poland _

_Dear Ludwig,_  
_So your big brother’s received another promotion, huh! Look at that. Though I can’t pretend that I’m surprised. I am Gilbert the awesome, after all, and you don’t earn that title by being a pain in the arse, like someone else I know. Are you still boring? God I hope not. How do you ever expect to attract women?_  
_Poniatowa is small. Lots of Jews pacing about, which is to be expected, but they didn’t tell me about all of the Soviet bastards. Probably knew I wouldn’t take the job if they did! Nah, they need me so bad, they couldn’t afford my refusal! This camp would be a hellish mess without me! There’d probably be Jews climbing the guard towers! I’m a saint for agreeing to come here honestly. A real saint._  
_My battalion fears and respects me. Poniatowa is… not like being on the battlefield, but I guess that’s okay too. Ha, I’ll be back out there in no time! They’ll miss me. You watch, they’ll need me. You know what, I bet that they made up all those accidents. They needed an excuse to get me off the field because I was winning the war too fast! Ha!_  
_Sometimes I’m so awesome it chokes me up._  
_Heil the Führer_  
_General der Waffengattung Gilbert Bielschmidt_

 

The next day, Gilbert is smoking under the frigid shade of a lone tree inside the camp when he sees a familiar face. There’s a huge man crouching against the barbed wire to his right, one hand on his knees and the other doodling lazily in the dirt. He has platinum blonde hair and pale, pale white skin and- oh. The tattered pink remnants of what used to be a scarf are draped haphazardly around his neck. Gilbert frowns.  
“Why is it that every time I see you, you’re never doing shit?” The man startles and looks up, but then he smiles and lets out a quiet chuckle.  
“I shit done.” He says, and Gilbert snorts because really, his German sucks and he probably has no idea what he just said. He has the vague feeling that he should be angry; doing something, even, to make the prisoner return to the others.  
“Whatever.” He’ll care right after this cigarette. God it’s freezing in the shade. He should probably move, but movement will almost inevitably lead him to shit he’s not in the mood to deal with. Maybe if he stays long enough he’ll freeze completely solid and they’ll have to thaw him out before they can all start barking orders at him again.  
His eyes idly follow the man’s fingers in their paths across the sand. He really is massive, with immensely broad shoulders and bear paws for hands and a jawbone that could probably serve as a decent mallet. He’s tall, as well; were he to stand he’d tower over Gilbert (and Gilbert’s never been considered a short man). His skin is pale, almost as pale as the white snow around him, and his hair is so platinum blonde that from this distance it looks white, too. The only person paler is Gilbert himself.  
“You are new.” The man says suddenly, “I not see you here before now.” Little flecks of sunlight filter through the tree leaves and catch in the strands of dirty hair.  
“Yeah.” Gilbert taps his cigarette and squashes the ashes that drop to the ground. “So what.” The man shrugs.  
“I not know. I just want…” He pauses and his face contorts into an odd expression as he tries to search for words. Finally he manages, “I want… To ask.” He looks up from the ground and his eyes meet Gilbert’s.  
Gilbert’s world shatters in a thousand tiny splinters of lilac tinted glass and his heart stops beating in his ribcage.  
The man’s eyes are _purple_.  
They’re not bleu. Maybe the shadows of the barracks before had made them appear that colour at first, but seeing them in better light leaves no room for debate. They’re entirely, completely and utterly purple. A loud purple, a vibrant purple, the kind of irrefutable vibrant that makes people stop and stare entire rooms away. The kind of colour that makes children pull their mothers by the hand and point and whisper, “What’s wrong with him mommy?” They’re the colour of the lavender fields Gilbert marched through in France, of the amethyst buttons on his mother’s good Christmas dress, the colour the Alps turn just when the sun rises and hits them at that perfect angle and they just _glow_ in the early morning light.  
All at once Gilbert has a million questions and absolutely none at all.  
Gilbert swears as his cigarette burns his fingers and flicks it disdainfully to the ground. The man chuckles very quietly and Gilbert shoots him a dark glare while he stamps out the remains.  
“What’s your name, Soviet?” Gilbert grinds out.  
“Ivan.” Gilbert blinks.  
“Ivan?” A nod.  
“Ivan.”  
“…” Gilbert snorts and smoke shoots out of his nostrils like some kind of pale Prussian dragon. “That’s Russian as _fuck_.” He cries. The man chuckles.  
“Yes,” he says, “Very Russian, I know.” Gilbert shakes his head.  
“Ivan.” He mutters, “Jesus Christ.” He fixes Ivan with a strange look and shakes his head, grin still on his face. Ivan’s got this weird dumbass smile permanently plastered to his face, and Gilbert feels just the slightest bit of annoyance. He’s oddly cheerful for someone stuck in a prison camp (it’s a bit far south to be dealing with Stockholm syndrome). Or maybe he’s still laughing at Gilbert’s cigarette burn from earlier. That thought annoys Gilbert just a bit, and the grin shrinks into one cocked eyebrow and tightly crossed arms as he feels something inside him harden and a voice in his head reminds him that _he’s the fucking commandant of this camp._  
“Well, move.” He says, “Get up. There’s work you should be doing somewhere.” For a second, Ivan’s eyes linger as the man processes what Gilbert says. Then, he slowly rises and begins walking back toward his barracks.  
His eyes leave Gilbert’s and if the earth is spinning on a new axis Gilbert would not be surprised.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And we're off.  
> So this is the actual first chapter, but as you will notice this story is currently titled "Preface" (and it will stay that way until my brain starts working the right way and I can figure out a good title for it). 
> 
> Cameo from Francis! General Lafayette, the dwarf with a sour disposition, is an OC. Note: Lafayette's German is not supposed to be perfect. That said, if the mistakes are so bad it impedes understanding, please tell me and I will fix the errors. But the story is written with the expectation that the German will not be understood, so if you do happen to be a German (or French) speaker, congratulations, you have cheated the system.  
> Hope you enjoyed. 
> 
> **I have not added a translation for the German/French in this story because there is so much of it here, and it's not important, but I'm willing to write out translations if they are requested.


	2. December, 1944

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Enter Ludwig. Aka. The one where there's enough repressed feelings to stuff a cow and Gilbert gets a 'lil krunk trying to cope.

Three weeks drag by like the days before Christmas and Gilbert finally begins to understand the monotony that is Poniatowa. Mornings are early. The moment the sun rises he is awake to the smell of oats and coffee. Breakfast itself is a loud affair. Gilbert’s battalion is young and energetic and exceptionally skilled at smuggling contraband. After breakfast is prisoner roll call. The average death toll per night levels off at around 25. Two weeks puts a significant dent in the camp’s workforce. The only thing that keeps the camp operational at all is the trains coming in with masses of raw material and prisoners. Poniatowa is primarily a POW camp, but all that really means is that there are not as many Jews. Nor crematoriums, though the ones that do exist are rarely used. Truly, Poniatowa is important because of the work. Each morning, most of the prisoners men are sent to the various factories within the camp fence. The rest are marched outside of camp to work on railways and tunnels and the men who are less able-bodied; the old, the ill, the weak- stay behind and prepare the food and transfer train cargo to the warehouses.  
Gilbert stays in camp. Every morning he watches the Russians march out into the fields beyond the barbed wire camp borders and as soon as they’re out of sight he heads into the radio room and listens for roughly an hour to the undulating wavelengths of various radio broadcasts; central command, a station that plays waltzes, an old Frenchman speaking in quiet tones about planets that exist in a universe far, far away. He monitors his orders religiously, but mostly he’s listening for anything about Ludwig. Though he supposes he wouldn’t really know, would he, since he’s only allowed knowledge of his brother’s location at certain and random times. Still, despite this, he listens.  
After the hour passes, he spends the majority of his days doing paperwork. Gilbert has a particular hatred for paperwork, he’s discovered. It’s tedious at best (though hellishly repetitive and sluggish most of the time) and his fingers aren’t used to the small, crowded keys. He makes mistakes often and his bottle of whiteout, which sits directly next to his typewriter, has quickly become the most essential item in the room. Typing also means that he has to wear his glasses, and he absolutely abhors the things, with lenses that are thicker-than-his-thumb and hideous brown frames that were quite possibly large enough to contain an entire map of the European continent.  
Thus, his day passes. The least offensive part of it all is lunch, which is the only time of day that he’s dragged out of his cubical hellhole and blessed with actual human interaction. He decides quickly that he likes the soldiers under his command. Many of them are Prussian. The rest are Austrian-Hungarian, and there are several Frenchmen as well (not including, fortunately, the obnoxious blonde he had encountered when he first arrived), but they carry themselves with snide expressions and almost always refuse to speak German and Gilbert finds that he doesn’t much care for their attitudes. After lunch, he walks the grounds in silence and heads back to the radio rooms and his god damn typewriter.  
At the end of the day, the Russians are marched back into camp gates and rations are served. Once every prisoner has been shuffled or beaten into their barracks, Gilbert can end his day. But sleep doesn’t come easy. Strange voices and overly-bright colours haunt his dreams and he tosses and turns and wakes up to sweat-soaked blankets. Night after night, he finds himself frantically typing letters to his brother that he knows he’ll never send by the light of a lit candle. There must be something in the air in Poniatowa, he figures. God, he really hates Poland.  
The war looms over Germany like the sword of Damocles. The Germans have suffered recent losses that have lowered the morale of the troops. Hitler has conscripted every man between 16 and 60 in protection of the Third Reich. Though the Soviets have been successful in parts of Poland, the Germans ignore them, continuing to fight the war in the west. It’s not the sweeping victory that Hitler was expecting… that Gilbert was expecting.  
It hardly matters. Gilbert’s been fighting on this front since the war began and here he will fight every day until it ends. No war was ever an easy one. Germany will prevail because… because it has to. Because good wins in the end or the heroes save the day or some sentimental bullshit like that. Because Germany is going to _fight_ , Germany is going to _fight_ and fight and _win_.  
There’s an iron cross that hangs on a ribbon around his neck and Gilbert’s hand reaches for it now, closing around the oak leaf and sword pattern. The Iron Cross, a symbol of valour and courage, above and beyond what duty calls for.*  
Gilbert feels secure. 

 

His brother comes on the fifth week he is in the camp.  
It starts with a low rumbling. Gilbert’s been squinting at the same two keys for the past ten minutes because goddammit why does six have to look so much like nine and his head feels like some obnoxious kid took a bat to it when the water by his hand begins to ripple. He catches it in his peripheral vision and then he stands and rushes to the window and watches like a little boy on Christmas as the Western gates are opened and the tanks begin to motor in.  
Excitement builds in his chest and he swipes his hat off his desk and pulls it on. It’s been far too long. Gilbert returns to the window as the tanks pull into formation and tries not to laugh at tiny little Lafayette greeting his hulking brother. When Ludwig starts to head in the direction of Gilbert’s office, he jumps back to his chair and kicks his feet up. A massive grin spreads across his face and stays there until a quiet knock on his door alerts him of a younger presence.  
“General Bielschmidt, are you there?”  
“Luddy!” And Gilbert laughs loudly, “Get in ‘ere.” Ludwig opens the door as bidden. The two Bielschmidt brothers take in the sight of each other. Ludwig is tall, 1.95* metres the last time anyone checked, and he has bright blonde hair and brighter bleu eyes and muscles that would look positively intimidating (next to anyone except Gilbert’s, naturally.) He stands with ramrod straight posture and his expression gives absolutely nothing away. His face looks like it could have been carved out of stone.  
He hasn’t changed a single bit, and Gilbert is thrilled.  
“So tell me,” He gestures to the chair on the opposite end of his desk, but Ludwig denies with a simple headshake. Typical. “I hear you got yourself promoted, little brother. Do my sources deceive me?” Ludwig seems to gain a bit of life with this change of topic, and he nods briskly and begins fishing through his left breast pocket. He produces a crisp white envelope and Ludwig hands Gilbert his orders.  
Another grin takes over his older brother’s face. Gilbert swipes the paper and slips the letter out of its envelope. He unfolds it and brings it to his face. There’s silence. He holds the paper closer to the light streaming in through the window. “I- ah…” Gilbert squints. Ludwig watches his display for a short few moments before he coughs and clears his throat.  
“Brother... your eyes.” Gilbert rips off his glasses and glares, and Ludwig shuts his mouth.  
“So you finally did something right did you? About time! You’ve got a long way to go to compete with me, of course.” Gilbert’s anger is gone as quickly as it came, and he stands up to smack his younger brother on the shoulder, successfully startling Ludwig into a ramrod straight salute.  
“Yes. We have occupied Paris and driven the French army to the beaches. We have bombers deployed every night in London and we have begun efforts to deport the French Jews. I-” He clears his throat. “I have been promoted to Standartenführer, colonel of my battalion.” Gilbert’s face lights up like the sun. The smile on his face stirs something akin to pride in Ludwig’s stomach, and he meets his brother’s approving stare.  
“Look at that.” Says Gilbert, voice close to bursting with pride. “Good, as it should be!” He slaps Ludwig again and laughs. “You’re going to outrank me soon. Me!” Gilbert makes a circle around his desk and comes to lean back in his chair, kicking his boot heels up to rest on his desk. Silence envelopes the room save for the clock ticking slowly above Gilbert’s head. Ludwig clears his throat.  
“Jesus brother, sit down and stay awhile. Been walking all day and you’re still not ready for a break?” Gilbert laughs, but Ludwig doesn’t move.  
“Actually, brother… I’d prefer to go back to my men. They’re very tired and we’ve been in the tanks all day and it would be unfitting of me as colonel if I was not with them when they are unloading.” Gilbert freezes. His eyes search Ludwig’s face for any sign of emotion, but there is none. Suddenly, there’s a sick feeling gathering deep in his stomach and behind his heart and he clears his throat with an attempt at a laugh.  
“Ha- ha ha, so serious brother! Always so serious!” And Gilbert fishes for his cigarette pack. “Well, go on. Get off then. Back to your squad and all that boring procedure.” Ludwig nods and salutes like a machine.  
“Hail the Führer.” A cigarette comes up and touches Gilbert’s lips.  
“Yeah, yeah, hail the… whatever.” And leans his chair back on two legs and kicks his feet up on his desk and blows a perfectly circular smoke ring up at the single buzzing light bulb.  
Ludwig turns on his heel and pulls open the door. But just as he’s about to step into the hallway, he stops. Hesitation. He turns and watches Gilbert lazily smoking and rocking back in his chair, and Ludwig takes a deep breath in.  
“Brother, sometimes I-…” But Ludwig doesn’t finish. The door closes on a room slowly filling with smoke. 

Gilbert stumbles out of the office when it’s so early in the morning that even the owls are sleeping and there’s not a sound in all of camp besides the erratic beat of his own heart. He’s so drunk his liver is singing him a lament and the whole world is spinning around in six frames at a time but he’ll be damned before he spends one night in that bloody office so he’s resolved to make it to bed if it kills him.  
Gilbert’s gut lurches and he sways and almost lands flat on his ass. Fuck. It just might kill him.  
As he’s in the process of stumbling back towards his quarters, drunkenly and stupid, he runs head first into a wall of solid meat. Swimming red eyes drag skyward and lock onto… Ivan. _What a motherfucking surprise._  
“Hello.” The Russian’s eyes seem confused, and Gilbert swears that he feels two large arms coming up to support him, but as drunk as he is all of this could be a dream anyway. “You very drunk.” Gilbert snorts and laughs because something is just _funny_ and he raises his hands and gropes at Ivan’s sleeves in a failed attempt to hold himself up.  
“Fuck.” He manages, and laughs louder at his own stupidity. “Don’t- don’t let your unit see me now, ha! Hey Ludwig, HEAR THAT LUDWIG? Ha-a, h-ha.” The world is blurry again and God he can’t walk and somewhere in the back of his mind he’s aware of Ivan’s voice quietly shushing him. He doesn’t know where he is anymore. He hasn’t been this drunk in a _long_ time. And tomorrow, he’ll probably promise God he’ll never get this drunk again.  
Ivan’s massive hands are holding him now, one on his chest and one patting his back. He didn’t realize he’d started to hurl. But Ivan’s holding him steady and the Russian man is waiting patiently as Gilbert relives his past hour of Vodka and stale _Salzstangen_. His voice is quiet in Gilbert’s ears and he murmurs low words in a language Gilbert doesn’t know. But Gilbert’s too drunk to care, almost too drunk to hear, or to wonder why Ivan’s creeping around the camp so early in the morning with just a pale burning lantern at his side. Some part of his mind knows he needs to sober up soon so he claps a hand over his mouth and jerks to try and hold back the sickness and whatever’s left of his pride.  
Two bleary red eyes turn upward and he blinks at the tiny dotted stars.  
“Fuck… bullshit.” He mutters, “I always wanted t’be a big brother.”  
He’s adjusted suddenly as Ivan’s massive bear paws slide from his torso to his shoulders and Ivan places him awkwardly on two feet.  
“Вы выглядите плохо.” He says.  
“Fuck you.” Says Gilbert. Absently, it occurs to him that he’s still seeing in sixes and he wonders when Ivan’s going to stop looking so _huge_. Ivan’s hands slide back down Gilbert’s arms and cup his elbows but Gilbert’s knees buckle and he ends up slumped awkwardly against his chest. There’s silence, for a moment, as Ivan seems either to not know what to do or to be waiting for Gilbert to do something. Gilbert lets out a long breath and surrenders his weight to Ivan entirely, slumped much in the same fashion of a pale ragdoll cut from its strings.  
“Standartenführer... Ludwig... Standartenführer…” _Hic_. “Was my little brother… and who do I have left.”  
The night air is frozen and wind stirs the tree leaves but Gilbert’s warm and he watches his breath as it clouds the swimming visions before his eyes. His ass is sticking out awkwardly behind him and where the fuck are his arms right now because Ivan is holding him up by his armpits like some kind of small child but damn it Gilbert’s tired. And no one’s around to see him looking this ungraceful anyway. Not that he’s overly graceful to begin with.  
“Can you walk?” Ivan asks. Gilbert starts and looks up at him.  
“… Fucken ‘course ‘can walk.” Gilbert doesn’t move. Ivan’s looking down at him with that blank stare he always seems to have and Gilbert’s looking back but his arms haven’t done so much as twitch and his feet are as unstable on the ground as they would be on a tight wire. There’s a long pause. Gilbert’s drunken mind lazily attempts synopsis, to no avail.  
Ivan’s hands move again. One slides to Gilbert’s left hand and the other encircles his left knee and before he even has any idea what’s happening, he’s on Ivan’s back and the Russian is carrying him towards his barracks like a comrade wounded by shells.  
Gilbert’s stomach twists and he can’t hold it back so he squeezes his eyes shut and hurls all the way down Ivan’s back. The Russian man doesn’t even break stride. Silent moments pass and Gilbert doesn’t chance opening his eyes. His mind is spinning in ways that even drunkenness cannot justify, but the sickness in his stomach serves as an apt distraction. Ivan’s hold is as strong as his size would suggest. It’s a long fall, but for some reason (blame it on the alcohol) Gilbert isn’t worried he’s going to.  
Gilbert’s more than exhausted now but one question manages to form itself from the drunken recesses of his mind. With immense effort, he drags up his head and tries to find the Russian’s face through the pitch blackness surrounding him.  
“Why are you helping me?” It’s not the question of a desperate man looking in awe to some compassionate saviour. None of this makes sense and Gilbert knows it, drunk off his ass or not. Ivan takes a moment before answering.  
“You do something for me.” His tone is decided and calm. Gilbert frowns and lets his head flop back down to his side.  
“Nu’I won’t.” There’s a pause and Ivan turns to meet his eyes.  
“Yes you will.”  
Ivan turns back around and keeps walking towards the barracks. 

Late December in Poland brings cold things. Gilbert thought he’d understood cold things before when his engine failed at the Stuttgart camp in November, but he realizes now that was, at best, a pathetic kind of joke. Ludwig was gone just like he’d come and, try though Gilbert might to fight it; the monotony has reared its ugly head once again. He finds that the only thing he looks forward to is the coming Christmas holiday. The Jews and Soviets will be given a break, which is another way to say that Gilbert will have one, and between the chewing gum hidden in Ludwig’s last letter and the extra chocolate he managed to smuggle into camp with him, it might actually be a pleasant holiday.  
Gilbert watches each letter as the type writer punches it into the paper. If he designed his barracks, he’d have put the desk in his bedroom and saved himself the walk. The building isn’t overly complicated. It looks more or less like a boring hotel, with hallways between the rows of soldiers’ quarters and stairs at the end of each. All bedrooms are on the left side. All offices are on the right. Lucky for Gilbert, his room is on the first level. Unluckily for Gilbert, his office is not.  
A knock on his door distracts him and he calls for the visitor to enter.  
“Herr Bielschmidt.” A man he doesn’t recognize steps into the door holding a crisp white envelope. “Ein Brief für Sie, General. Von Ihrem Bruder.” _Ludwig_. Gilbert shoots up from his chair and quickly grabs the envelope from the man’s hand, barely remembering a muttered, “Danke.” In the process.  
When the door clicks shut, Gilbert feels a smile tug across his face. Scrawled out across the top in Ludwig’s neat writing is a simple request: _Open on Christmas_. Gilbert kicks his feet up and turns his face to look out the window at the glowing grey snow clouds. _My God_ , he closes his eyes and lets the moment linger. _A pleasant Christmas_. 

 

_24 December, 1944_  
_[Location withheld]_  
_General der Waffengattung Gilbert Bielschmidt,_

_Good morning Gilbert. How are you? How is Poniatowa? You seemed to be running things rather smoothly when my battalion and I resupplied. Good for you. You do Hitler’s army proud, brother. I hope you can accept this letter in place of my gift. It’s been hard to come across anything worth sending, out here._  
_I am well. I am not permitted to tell you my location, at least for now, but we have not suffered losses the way our comrades in other areas have. My men seem to lack courage, but not strength. I have faith we will hold against the enemy, at least for now. I do have good news. My command tells me that I will be back in your vicinity. I’m sure we will see each other again soon._  
_Merry Christmas Gilbert_  
_My regards_ ,  
_Officer Ludwig Bielschmidt_  
_Unit 2243_

Gilbert blows out a thin line of smoke. He’s leaning back against that tree, which has become habit, it seems. It’s snowing. The entire camp is covered in the stuff, in fact. He supposes he’s gotten used to it, but that doesn’t stop the eternal feeling of frostbite and lost potential.  
“You celebrate Christmas in Commie land?” He asks, smoke dribbling from his nose and mouth.  
“Yes.” Says Ivan, “Different there.” Gilbert raises a brow and turns his eyes skyward.  
“Happy Christmas.” He says suddenly. He doesn’t meet Ivan’s eyes, but he can feel the Russian’s boring into him.  
“Happy Christmas.” Silence takes over. Gilbert’s smoking like a chimney today and Ivan appears to be doing something akin to whittling with a rock and a stick. Gilbert feels like he should probably do something about that, but he can’t bring himself to care. If it starts looking sharp he’ll take it from him. Another breath produces another stream of smoke and, through it; he can still feel two purple eyes boring into his face. Something about those eyes always makes him feel like he can’t breathe. Fuck.  
A tiny slow flake falls out of the smoke and Gilbert watches it touch down on the tip of his nose. The world around him is grey and cold, but the cigarette burns warm between his fingers. A quiet voice interrupts his train of thought.  
“Those kill you, you know.” Gilbert laughs and lets his head roll down to give Ivan a large, toothy grin.  
“Counting on it.” He says. But Ivan’s still staring at him and he feels the need to defend himself so he continues, “Not me.” The next breath of smoke is aimed at Ivan’s face, “I don’t have that kind of luck.” Ivan’s eyes drop back to his lap or whatever it is he’s trying to carve and he casually inspects his hands.  
“I not smoke more.” His eyes leave his lap and his fingers knot in the scraps of his filthy scarf. “I have sisters.”  
“You do?” Ivan’s eyes shoot up to meet Gilbert’s. He nods.  
“Yes. Two. Natalia and Katyusha. They are good girls and I love them. I go home for them. I tell them I am sorry. They are afraid now because I not am home, I know. I go home…” Suddenly, Ivan’s purple eyes go somewhere far away, and his voice tapers off and fades. For a moment, Gilbert considers pressing, but then he closes his mouth and stands. Ivan’s not here anymore. Ivan found a way out of this tiny little concentration camp in Poland, all the way across the border and back to home. Wherever home is. Gilbert turns and walks away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to all those still with me! Hope you enjoyed! Honestly, drunk Gilbert was just way too much fun to write.
> 
> *There is actually research (a good bit of it) that went into this story! There were several variations of the Iron Cross. The Iron Cross itself was actually quite a standard award, so to speak, and was given out quite freely. Other variations become more intricate and have far more distinction and meaning. This website: http://www.worldwar2aces.com/iron-cross.htm does a particularly good job explaining. For the purposes of history and the accuracy of this story, I picture Gilbert having earned the Knights Cross with Oak Leaves and Swords, considering his zeal as a soldier, extremely high rank, and the level of respect with which he is treated by the other officers in service with him.


	3. January, 1945

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which shit begins to hit the fan, part I

_17 January, 1945_  
_Status of Germany in the war:_  
_Soviet troops have captured Warsaw, Poland_. 

The war is not going well.  
Gilbert can feel it like ice in his bones, read it in the cracks in the walls, can see it in the ghostly faces passing dully under his cloudy scarlet eyes. Days pass him by like frantic little heartbeats. He can’t cross from one end of the camp to the other without hearing the whispers or catching the peripheral glances his men are shooting in his direction. There’s a heavy kind of silence hanging over the place, a feeling most comparable to that dread in the pit of the stomach when there’s a sword hanging overhead from a single, dwindling string.  
He wonders if the Soviets feel it too. Wonders what they whisper about at night as the wind howls through their barracks. Wonders about the symbols scrawled messily in the dirt. Wonders what they’re thinking when they stare at him with cloudy eyes and pointed glares and their mouths move in so many different ways and he _doesn’t understand_.  
Ludwig’s letters are short and few and covered in black streaks of government censorship. What he does manage to get through are words of decaying frontal lines, the advancement of British troops into German-occupied France, the arrival of the Americans. A comrade of his was wounded by shells while fighting the French resistance and the man lies beside Ludwig as he pens his letter.  


_He will not be here much longer. I don’t know if it’s the ghost of God or the ghost of death that hangs above him, or if perhaps after all the two are the same. He leaves the world as he came into it, Gilbert. A soldier fighting for survival. We’ll all have sins to atone for when it is our time. But I am bothered by one thing. There is none but I at his bed side. With my hand in his, he dies alone tonight._

Gilbert can feel the walls of his kingdom beginning to shake. Germany needs nothing less than a miracle now. But Gilbert will fight, and keep on fighting. Gilbert will fight until the allied planes have to run him into the ground, fight until the blood on his hands matches the red in his eyes, fight until his castle walls come crumbling down and bury him in rubble.  
Something like panic settles deep into his chest and his two white hands fish through his uniform for cigarettes. A lighter clicks, a quivering flame rises to the butt of an unlit cigarette. Gilbert will fight so hard that doubt can never catch up to him and run until he slips off the mountain of his sin. 

_Boring_. White fingers flip a white page into a white trashcan.  
_Boring _.__ A brown mug filled with some sorry excuse for coffee steams on the corner of his desk, untouched. He pushes back the ribbon on his typewriter and his fingers begin tapping their way through keys.  
_Boring_. That’s all war is, sometimes, he guesses. Paperwork is an inevitable part of war. The fuel behind the war machine. It has to be done by someone at some point, he guesses.  
_Bored_.  
_Ding_. The ribbon slides back into place and Gilbert types another line of symbols. _Boring_. This is nothing like the battlefield.  
War isn’t boring in the middle of a battlefield. War isn’t boring when the sound of smoke and shells fills your ears and men are screaming and you can feel the adrenaline building inside your body as you raise your rifle and pull the trigger. War isn’t boring when your eyes are full of grit and smoke and your nose is burning from exploded shells and the stench of rotting bodies and the sounds of men crying out to Jesus, begging for mercy because there’s a bullet lodged next to their heart and _why can’t they just die, Lord, why_?! War isn’t boring when your heart is pounding ten thousand kilos per minute and your men are falling left and right and people are screaming and the sound of tanks roars over the soil like thunder and you’re barking out orders and running and falling and losing and winning and fighting and fighting and fighting-  
Gilbert’s hand clenches into a fist and he slams it down on the desk, producing a loud **bang** and the typewriter’s distressed _ding_ in protest to the abuse. His heart is pounding like bird wings in his chest. His breathing drags ragged up from his lungs. His eyes are watering and his thick reading glasses feel cumbersome so he rips them off and slams them down onto his desk.  
His hands come up to his face and he buries his eyes into them, running them through his hair and down his neck and swallowing the unpleasant bile in his throat. Something is burning inside of him, something behind his eyes and in his throat and stomach and beating frantically next to his heart. The explosions ring in his ears, the voices of one hundred men in his battalion calling his name-  
“ _General Bielschmidt! General Bielscmidt! Helfen Sie mir! Bitte_!”  
“ _General Bielschmidt_!”  
“ _General_ -”  
“ _BITTE_ -”  
A sob rips from his throat and hot tears and sweat pour down from his forehead. He feels his face slam into his desk in front of his typewriter but he doesn’t care, hardly feels the pain as he clenches his teeth and everything inside of him and forces his sobs to quiet, brings a curled fist to his mouth and bites down as hard as he can. He’s breaking apart. He’s losing his mind here in his office.  
He wants to be back out there. He wants to be back on the battlefield, wants to be back with the shells and the mortar and the screaming of the fallen; he hates being _here_ , hates Poniatowa and all its fucking _Jews_ and bastard Soviets! Hates sitting in a little square cubicle filing little square papers and bullying stupid, useless prisoners who never did him anything wrong in the first place- he wants to _fight_! He wants to _win_! He wants to be something other than someone else’s figure head but it’s _his own damn fault because of his DAMN EYES AND HE HATES THEM AND HE HATES THIS AND IF HE HAD JUST MADE A BETTER CALL, IF HE HAD JUST SEEN THE FRENCH COMING THROUGH THE TREES, HAD JUST ORDERED HIS MEN TO FIRE TO THE SOUTH_ -  
_But Gilbert’s focus wanders back before he can himself and finds the French soldier in the pale bleu uniform—_  
_They could have been friends, he knows it, could have been the very best of friends- ___  


**“ _I’M FUCKING NORMAL GOD DAMN IT_!”**  


“General Bielschmidt!” And Gilbert’s head snaps up from the desk and he turns a frantic, desperate gaze to the horrified private standing in his doorway, one hand still on the doorknob and his eyes wide and concerned and horrified all at the same time- and Gilbert feels the tattered breathing raking his chest become quieter as he forces himself to hold the poor boy’s gaze.  
A headache has bloomed behind his retinas and it throbs slowly like a second, morbid heartbeat. Gilbert’s eyes feel red, redder than they usually are. He drags them away from his visitor and to his hands and is not surprised to find that they’re shaking. After an endless silence, he meets the boy’s eyes a second time. He forces the words from his mouth.  
“I’m sorry, private.”  
“General, are you-”  
“LEAVE!” And Gilbert jumps up from his chair as the boy slams shut the door. The sound of his footsteps echoes down the hallway.  
Gilbert sinks back into his chair and cradles his face in his fingers.  
 _The war is not going well. The war is not going well. The war is not going well…_

_The war is not going well_.  
_Fancy that_. _You’ve been fighting pretty hard, haven’t you Gilbert. This is just how you always were. You were so quick to be so, so loyal. You were like a dog. A blind dog._  
_Do you think that tearing your eyes out will make your skin look less white?_  
_Would you do it, if you did?_  
_I think you would._  
_Only then you wouldn’t be able to fight, would you? Wouldn’t be able to run off and join Hitler’s army? And what would you be then? A burden?_ _An outcast?_  
_Why did you join the army, Gilbert? Was it some noble quest of yours, save Germany? Restore the might of the German empire? Laughable. You’re Prussian; what do you even care about the German empire to begin with? Or maybe did you join the army looking for something else. Maybe did you join the army hoping to be accepted?_  
_Hoping for colour blindness?_  
_Were you hoping to be something, Gilbert?_  
_To do something right? To be an older brother Ludwig didn’t have to turn in shame away from?_  
_Were you trying to be a hero, Gilbert?_  
_But you’re not._  
_Because, after all, the war is not going well._  
_You're losing Gilbert._  
_You're losing._  
_You failure._  
_You're just a freak_.  


_Maybe you should take a lesson from Ludwig_

The morning sun breaks over Poniatowa and Gilbert’s bloodshot eyes are staring lifelessly into nothing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so. Wow. That was a lot.  
> I really like this chapter. Taking characters apart- what makes them tick, watching them slowly fall to pieces; morbid though it is, it's fascinating.  
> So Gilbert may have something akin to PTSD. Whoops. 
> 
> Also, as a big fan of the BTT myself, I wanted to kind of nod to it. I think in war it's so easy to _think_ we hate people. But do we, in reality? I think some small part of us knows, at the end of the day, that they could just as easily be our brothers and sisters.


	4. January, 1945

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is really more like chapter 3.5 but I don't like decimals.  
> Warning: the angst train has arrived. No, it doesn't get better. 
> 
> But in all seriousness, this is not a happy chapter. This really isn't a happy story. WWII was a fucked up time in history. No exceptions.

_Раз, два три четыре пять_  
_Вышел зайчик пагулять_  
_Вдруг охотник выбегает_  
_Прямо в зайчика стреляет_  
_Пиф Паф Ой ой ой_  
_Умирает зайчик мой_  
_Прмвезли его домой_  
_Оказался он живой._

In the white Russian snow, a little boy plays, locks of platinum blonde hair to frame his long face. His eyes are the colour of dark purple lace but his skin is as white as the snow.  
_In the grey Polish snow, a grown man works, his back aches and both hands are hurt. His eyes are as dull as the clouds over the earth and his skin is as grey as the soot._

_Thick, black smoke hangs low around the gates of Poniatowa._  
“ _Germany has won significant victories on the Eastern Front.”_  
Radio static pulls at the end of every syllable. Gilbert has muted the radio on his left, reporting in a low tenor that the Eastern front has been overrun.  
_“There will be many trains full of prisoners to be liquidated upon arrival in Poniatowa as a result of these victories.”_  
Many trains. So very many trains. A flood of humans herded in through the gates of Poniatowa. Women, children, men of all ages. The trains stop, a procession forms. The marching feet, many bare, crunch down the snow and ice. There’s shoving and crying and yelling. Languages Gilbert’s only read about in schoolbooks float up to him through the glassless window of his cubical office. Another whistle; another train stops, the noise multiplies itself again. He can’t count the days it’s been like this. The camp has become a madhouse; a crowded, chaotic thing, with guards rushing about like ants, wearing dark scowls and brandishing clubs like madmen at the slightest prisoner insurrections. These were the men who sat together around a breakfast table simple weeks ago, smuggling chewing gum and chocolate and laughing about cheap French women. They look nothing like those men now.  
Gilbert is no longer inside his office. He is outside with the soldiers and the soot and the trains. Faces pass rapidly under his uncaring eyes; some afraid, most emaciated. The wind shrieks through the trees and across the flattened courtyard and the snow attacks the earth like a rain of white bullets. Mother Nature herself seems to be crying out in agony. The sunglasses never leave Gilbert’s face. He presses his lips into a thin line and his back is straight like a ruler and he remembers that statue in Hamburg that his mother never liked, the one of the famous German soldier.  
The crematorium churns out endless smoke. Forms on his desk say Zyklon B* and the Soviet prisoners who are marched out of the camp each morning are ordered to abandon their progress on train tracks and they now spend the hours closer to camp, shovels in hands, digging. He’s sure that they wonder what it is they’re digging for. Some of them probably know. Every day, Gilbert stands in his snow-soaked uniform and watches them all walk to their deaths.  
Something is churning inside him and starting to saturate his stomach and his chest. There’s a weight pressing him into the earth, an ever present feeling digging into his consciousness, something painful and unjustified. Hatred, like bile, is corrupting his system. Still each day, he stands his post. 

January ends. As abruptly as it had come, the influx of Jews is gone. The final curl of smoke rises from the crematorium and mingles with the dismal atmosphere. The Russian’s mass grave is full and covered over. The forms stop flooding Gilbert’s desk, and he returns to his typewriter with all of the hatred he’s always had for it. Poniatowa is far from empty. The original group of Soviets from Gilbert’s arrival executed the majority of the camp’s physical labour and had been deemed nonexpendable. In addition, several groups of the incoming prisoners had been added to the camp’s workforce. On the surface it’s as if nothing ever changed. On the surface, the camp is performing flawlessly.  
If the next three mornings General Bielschmidt’s sheets reek of bile, his soldiers pretend not to notice. 

 

Some days, to be in the office is bearable. Most days, however, it’s not, and when he’s finally so sick and tired of hearing nothing but the dull roar between his ears, he shoves up from his chair and relieves Lieutenant Jäger of his post, paperwork be damned. Jäger is one of the guards of the Soviet workmen. Gilbert wakes the next morning with the rest, laces his boots, and straps the rifle across his back. They march the men out before sunrise and reach the train tracks as the first rays of morning begin spilling over the trees. There are no questions asked; each post is taken without comment. The metallic noises of physical labour start up all around him. The other guards stand silent and unmoving while Gilbert paces slowly up and down the line. The rifle is heavy on his back and he revels in that weight as something to ground him. His boots crunch the ice. He knows, logically, that at some point Poland must have had a summer. His chattering teeth do not agree.

There’s some shouting down the line that catches Gilbert’s attention and his legs are running before his brain has even registered a need for celerity. One of the Soviets (a man far too old to be living, much less working with moth eaten clothing in -10°C*) has missed his spike with his mallet and brought it down instead on his foot. He’s dropped to the frozen ground, hands clutching his injury, emitting low, animalistic moans. Gilbert arrives simultaneously with another soldier, who barks out a harsh command: _get up!_  
Mallets strike metal spikes to his left and to his right. An endless line of prisoners dutifully does not look away from its work. _“Get up!”_ The soldier says again. The tension in the air is so thick it’s palpable. The hairs on the back of Gilbert’s neck prick up. The soldier shoulders his rifle. _“Get up or I’ll shoot!”_  
With lightening speed, another prisoner breaks rank. He’s to the man in seconds, too quickly to allow the soldier to react, and even as Gilbert is pulling around his own rifle he’s settling the old man carefully on his feet. Several words are murmured quietly in Russian. The old man nods once, the soldier yells for quiet, and the prisoner darts back into line. Very gradually, and with an expression of incredible pain, the old man picks up his mallet once again. He raises it above his head, slowly, arms shaking, as if the entire weight of the world rests in his hammer, and he brings it down with a _clang_.  
Gilbert blows out a breath he didn’t realise he was holding. 

_**Bang** _

The old man drops to the snow with a red hole through his forehead. Silence envelopes the line for a full second before the clangour of hammers starts up again. Gilbert watches the soldier lower his gun. “Useless bastard,” He spits in Silesian. Gilbert wonders if the man knows he understands the Silesian dialect.  
Gilbert turns on his heel and paces slowly away, eyes searching the workers until they finally catch on the man who had broken rank. With a hawk’s eye tuned for any sign of insubordination, Gilbert watches him work.  
He looks tall. It’s hard to tell from the way he’s bent over, but Gilbert can see the long legs and torso. He’s emaciated; they all are, but it shows far more on him because of how huge he truly should be. His bones are like thick like concrete and they look so hideously wrong where they show through his skin. Even his ribs remind Gilbert of the flanks of a workhorse. It creates the image of a hollowed out shell, like this man should occupy so much more space than he does now.  
He should be able to toss that mallet around like it weighs less than an empty bucket but hunger and hard work have taken their toll on his strength. He’s slow like the rest, but a lot steadier, and as he leans down to the ground, something flutters out behind his neck. Gilbert’s breath catches in his throat before he can stop it. Wrapped around the tin neck are the remnants of a tattered pink scarf. The man is Ivan.  
His state of his atrophy is astonishing. A body that should easily weigh 90 kilograms* looks now to be somewhere around 60*. His collarbones protrude from under his uniform. His face, once round, is shaped to the skull underneath, sucked hollow, so that from Gilbert’s angle for a moment it looks almost like he’s staring straight at bone. He looks just like every other prisoner to his left and to his right. Yet no, he _doesn’t_ , because this is Ivan, a man who should look like an overgrown bear cub, but now Gilbert can see the shape of his bones and he’s sick and he’s going to be sick and-  
Gilbert turns his back on Ivan and tips his head up to the sky. The sting of the snow on his cheeks alleviates the nausea. Ivan is dying. Ivan is wasting away, slowly decaying right here in front of him. But he’s seen it before. He’ll see it again, there are a hundred- a _thousand_ men and women and screaming crying children who he’s seen do the same thing- hell, who he's _sent_ to do the same thing himself.  
He draws up a memory of a guttural Russian accent. He conjures images of his men, broken and gasping and dying on the battlefield. He thinks of Ludwig, of a Russian bullet blowing through that armour and piercing muscle and sinew, burying straight into his heart... That does it. Something seems to snap inside Gilbert. He steels himself, feels that hard thing burning inside of him again, and he turns back around to face-  
_Ivan’s eyes are on him and they’re burning him where he stands._  
Hatred is more than an emotion. Hatred is every curse he sees in Ivan’s eyes as the man glowers at him.  
_You did nothing. A voice with a Russian accent speaks inside his head. I helped that man and he murdered him and you. Did. Nothing._  
_“HÖR AUF!”_ Gilbert didn’t realise he had raised his rifle. But all eyes are on him now and he’s pointing it straight at Ivan’s head and his hands are shaking so badly he _knows_ they’ve all got to see it. _“Hör auf!”_ He repeats, a second time, and Ivan’s eyes are still on him, still angry, but they’ve changed into something else Gilbert has no interest trying to analyse.

_Clank._  
Ivan turns away from Gilbert and picks up his mallet once again. 

 

_Раз, два три четыре пять_  
_Вышел зайчик пагулять_  
_Вдруг охотник выбегает_  
_Прямо в зайчика стреляет_  
_Пиф Паф Ой ой ой_  
_Умирает зайчик мой_  
_Прмвезли его домой_  
_Оказался он живой._

 

 

_One, two, three four five_  
_My pet rabbit went out_  
_For a walk one day_  
_A hunter came out_  
_And shot him away_  
_Boom, bang, no, no, no!_  
_My pet rabbit was slain!_  
_So we brought him home only to find_  
_He turned out to be alive*_

 

 

 

 

  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Zyklon B was a chemical used in gas chambers during the war  
> *-10 C ~ 14 F  
> *90 kg ~ 198 lbs  
> *60 kg ~ 132 lbs  
> *Russian nursery Rhyme:  
> Раз, два три четыре пять  
> Вышел зайчик пагулять  
> Вдруг охотник выбегает  
> Прямо в зайчика стреляет  
> Пиф Паф Ой ой ой  
> Умирает зайчик мой  
> Прмвезли его домой  
> Оказался он живой.
> 
> I tried (emphasis on tried) to translate this to have some kind of beat in English. The literal translation is:  
> One, two, three, four, five,  
> A hare went out for a walk  
> Suddenly a hunter appeared  
> And shot the hare  
> Bang bang, o o o,  
> My hare is going to die.  
> He was brought home  
> And he turned out to be alive.


	5. February, 1945

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The cornered animal philosophy dictates that an animal is at its most dangerous when it feels trapped. 
> 
> In which shit hits the fan, part II

_13-14 February, 1945_  
_Status of Germany in the war:_  
_Dresden has been destroyed by firestorm after allied bombing raids._

Three men have gathered in the darkness of pre-dawn outside the soldiers’ barracks of Poniatowa. The air is crisp and frigid at the end of a bitter Polish February. The clouds hang heavy and low in the sky. Three glowing dots of orange provide the only source of light; just enough to illuminate the smoke as it spills from their mouths fills the air along with the sound of low, rumbling German.  
“I got a letter from my brother today. He said the bombing was hell. People were crawling out of the bomb shelters with ashes on their face looking like starved rats out of the sewers. Everything has been demolished.”  
“Dresden was a vital city.”  
“They’ve got no food now, no supplies over there. Trains can’t come through to pick up the unlucky bastards who did manage to survive; they’re all on their own.”  
“Germany is fresh out of allies.”  
“We need to face the fact that we are losing this war.”  
“I heard that they’re ordering the liquidation of the camps farther away from the capitol. Think we’ll be next?”  
“After Warsaw, it can’t be far off. I think the Soviets know it too.”  
“They do.” A lighter flicks and explodes to life for the briefest second and a fourth cigarette joins the group. There’s the sound of a steady exhalation of smoke, and the new voice continues, “They’ve been whispering… sneaking glances at us when they think we’re not looking. I’ve seen the messages they’re writing in the dirt. They can’t erase it all before I see it.”  
“What’ve they been saying, Klaus?”  
“I never quite hear. They’re smarter than that. Sneakier. Something about escape. But I don’t know how they’d do it, not without a leader who knows what he’s doing. They’d need a man who knows the way, and who speaks German- or they could never coordinate with the Jews.” Klaus tapped his cigarette. “They don’t have a man who can do that. USSR is a long way away.”  
“Have you been praying for a change in the war?” A collective snort.  
“Don’t be a dumbass.”  
“The general should be worried. If they try anything, it’s his neck they’ll be slitting first.” A unanimous grunt of agreement echoes around the group. Someone says, “Poor bastard.”  
“Lieutenant Klaus.”  
“ _Shit!_ ” Four hearts stop dead. Silence encompasses. There is the click of a lighter; a little yellow flame shoots heavenward and is reflected back at the men through the thick lenses of heavily tinted sunglasses. The face illuminated by the glow of the flame is pure white but the shadows suck at cheekbones and hollow them, turn the image into the likeness of a wraith more than a man. “Lieutenant Klaus,” He says again. The lighter touches his cigarette and disappears into darkness. “What are the Soviets planning?” 

_Anger is most similar to an animal that has gotten itself stuck inside a small space. It hisses and growls and carries on wretchedly, all the while clawing and kicking frantically to escape this predicament that it’s gotten itself into._  
Gilbert stalks through the camp with his hands clenched into tight fists at his sides. He stalks past the armoured guards, past the ditch diggers and the fence builders, past the Soviets rooting through the ashes in the crematorium. He doesn’t stop until he reaches Ivan’s tree, the goddamn tree, and when he sees the Russian sitting there, playing in the dirt like a _child_ , anger floods his chest and in that second it’s as if a bubble bursts somewhere near his liver and when Ivan looks up to greet him, Gilbert swings back his boot and kicks the man in the face.  
“You think you’re going to break out,” He kicked harder than he thought and Ivan falls flat on his back and claps a hand over his nose, which begins gushing blood.  
The sun is shining today, for some morbid reason. It catches on the metal of the watch towers and the fence and does hell on Gilbert’s eyes, but for all its brightness it gives no warmth. The only thing keeping him from freezing to death is the anger boiling his insides out.  
There was something hostile about the cold in Poland, not like it was in Germany, something insidious, a desire to _get away_ to _anywhere else_ and spend a lifetime pretending it was possible to forget. It’s fucking melodramatic and God, he’ll never, fucking never admit it and if he stands in the shade for another fucking second he will actually die of the cold but Ivan doesn’t seem like he’s about to give him an answer so Gilbert smashes his foot into the man’s stomach ( _right through, it’s so small, Gilbert’s toe probably hit a vertebrae_ ) and spits it out again through gritted teeth.  
“You think you’re going to escape?”  
Ivan is like a lumbering bear. A smaller man would recover more quickly, but Gilbert’s anger counts three wet gasps before he manages to push himself to his feet. Holding his stomach. Pupils dilated. He’s not smiling anymore; there’s something dark in his eyes, something hostile and predatory that sets Gilbert’s teeth on edge and makes his vision swim red.  
“No,” he says. He’s looking Gilbert right in the eyes and he means exactly what he says, no translation errors about it, and Gilbert’s heart starts beating just a little bit faster and hot blood is rising to his face like the first time he had sex with a woman in that seedy diner in the Belgium countryside.  
“Are you lying to me?” Ivan shakes his head.  
“No.”  
“So my guards are lying to me?!”  
“I not know,” Gilbert stalks forward and rips him up to eye level by the collar of his uniform.  
“Well somebody’s lying to me because you know something Soviet, I know a lot of men who speak Russian and they’re telling me exactly what you and your other _Slavs_ are whispering about when you think we don’t know and I’m going to give you _one more fucking chance_ to tell me the truth!” Ivan is looking him straight in the eyes.  
“Are you planning to escape?” Ivan’s hand slides up and grasps the frayed corner of the scarf around his neck.  
“No. I not plan nothing.” Gilbert’s hand rips out his staff and he brings it down like a crack of dry thunder. 

 

 

Long after the evanescent sunlight has vanished behind distant mountains and plunged Poniatowa into the inky darkness of a starless, clouded night, the acid is still stirring somewhere deeply buried behind Gilbert’s spleen and in his head and heavy on his lungs as he jerks awkwardly in his bed. Compulsion dictates; he rises from the barracks, from his pile of army blankets, and makes his way outside into the stinging, glacial night air. He walks down the prisoner’s barracks, walks until he sees one shivering mass outside a tangled mess of others, and there he stops. He pulls out his lighter, cups a hand to shelter what he can from the wind, and flicks it to life above the broken hull sprawled out at his feet.  
For the longest time, he stares down at the torn and bleeding flesh and long crisscrossing ribbons of red and purple and the bleu and black rainbows marring otherwise snow white flesh. He stares until the lighter has burned through its fuel and it extinguishes abruptly and he’s left in complete, encompassing darkness. He stares until his limbs turn to ice and he doesn’t think he’ll be able to close his eyes.  


The next morning, one body wakes up covered in green, military grade blankets and there’s an iron cross sitting in a small bundle underneath of a tree at the edge of camp.


	6. March, 1945

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The inevitable end to a decaying orbit is still a depressing end nonetheless.

_30 March, 1945_  
_Status of Germany in the war:_  
_Soviet troops have captured Danzig, Germany._  


Radio static washes over a dark room like waves on a beach. In the darkness, twelve stations. Twelve radios. Twelve men sit, left hand on a tuning dial and right hand on clunky earpieces spitting static. The men are good friends. They say nothing.  
“ _… Bestellungen von die höchste Befehls: liquidieren Sie der Camp Poniatowa. General der Waffengattung Gilbert Bielschmidt, Wiederholung: liquidieren Sie Poniatowa. Verstehen Sie General?”_  
The static crackles through the broadcast. Five minutes. Ten minutes. The other side is waiting for a response which should have been long received. The men should do something. Send a response or turn off the broadcast. The men do nothing.  
They sit, frozen, with eyes staring blankly into the blackness. Unblinking. Unfeeling.  
_“General Bielschmidt, liquidieren Sie der Camp Poniatowa. Wiederholung.”_  
Every man in the room knows what this means. There is something dark and resentful brooding at the back of their minds, something they don’t want to acknowledge, something they don’t know if they can. Its face is becoming clearer.  
_“Liquidieren Sie Poniatowa. General der Waffengattung, Gilbert….”_  
The Russians have advanced on the Eastern border.  
_“Arbeitet das Radio?”_  
The Allies have been victorious.  
_“Wiederholung: …”_  
Germany has lost the war.  
_“Liquidieren Sie…”_  
Germany has lost the war and it is time to liquidate Poniatowa. 

Streaks of faded orange linger in the mauve of a late evening sky, catching the last rays of the dying sun as it sinks over the horizon and reflecting in the glow of a single lit cigarette clutched between pale fingers. Nightfall at Poniatowa finds the General as it often does; his back to a barracks, his hat low on his head, his eyes millions of kilometres above the atmosphere.  
The snow has barely begun to melt. The ground still feels frozen. This and the biting wind are anathema to his exhausted mind, but none of this matters anymore. He won’t be in Poland for long.  
The sound of crunching ice alerts him to a second presence and he jolts back into himself, casting a leery gaze into the dusk. Someone is approaching. Moving slowly. If he had better eyes he’d recognize them by now. He does not, so his fingers find his lighter.  
_Click_. He lights another cigarette. A hulking shape appears in the glow.  
Suddenly his throat feels dry.  
“... Soviet.” He rumbles from somewhere deep inside his chest.  
“Hello.” Says Ivan, and steps fully into the light.  
The man before him is no longer a human. His eyes trace a familiar pattern. The face has become hollow. The forehead is wide. The eye sockets have sunken into the skull. The cheeks are sucked inwards, cheekbones protruding. Underneath the skin the skull has risen to the forefront. The neck is thin. The Adam’s apple sticks out. Under the prisoner uniform, the shape of the body is mutilated; the curves are gone. The limbs look too long. The ribs are distinct, each one poking through flesh, eventually becoming a massive inward dip that once was a stomach. Two massive plates face outward below the spine with skin stretched tight overtop, the pelvis bones, which protrude and offer the body its only shape. The legs and arms are shaped to the bones underneath. When the knees bend, the patella and tibia are visible through the skin.  
He is a reanimated skeleton, an X-ray covered by skin. To watch him move is sickening. Every twitch casts a new bone shape into the light. His eyes are dull, as dull as the haze over the distant mountains, but underneath, the violet pigment is electric. Colour screaming to be heard in a sea of detachment and miasma. The voice inside his head comes back to him again.  
_Nothing matters_.  
“Why is it that whenever I see you, you’re never doing shit?” That was a joke. He doesn’t smile. Ivan doesn’t either.  
“I hope I lose you.” He’s looking right at him. The haze and the fire simultaneously, somehow both dead and so, so alive. Gilbert stares back and wonders about his own soul.  
“Find.” He provides. Ivan nods once, takes the spot next to him on the wall.  
“I come to you talk tonight.” He says. Gilbert says nothing. “I come to…” Ivan stops there, and his face screws up into an odd expression as his mind digs for the words. “I come to…”  
They all start to lose their minds, in the end. It’s always either the first or last thing to go. Ludwig once told him, when they were young and stupid and they thought that maybe good and bad weren’t written by the government, that must be the worst thing of all.  


_“If you die you just lose your body. But they put that in the ground and label the place where they put it and it’s still you, just in a different shape. But if you lose your mind, they can do whatever they want with your body, but it will never be you again.”_  


Ivan’s speech is sluggish. There’s a low tremor in his hands.  
“I come tonight to you say goodbye.” His eyes pin Gilbert where he stands. “Tonight is... after tonight is no more, we not see us... more.”  
“Oh.” Gilbert’s heart might not be beating. He can’t tell. There is no sensation in his body other than cold. Coldness in his eyes. In his jaw. In his stomach and biting his ears. “Goodbye.” He repeats, testing his voice.

 _As a child, Ludwig would say that he could trust Gilbert with many things, but he’d **never** trust Gilbert with books._  
_“Gilbert!” God, Ludwig was mad. So mad, so incredibly angry that day, his irises behind his eyes were burning with charged bleu fire. “You ripped out the ending of my book! Again! Gilbert! You’re the worst! If you don’t want to read the endings then don’t read the endings don’t rip out the pages!”_  
_But how could Gilbert ever explain?_  
_He always hated the endings. It wasn’t enough, not to read the pages. He read books, devoured books, if the ending was there the temptation to read it- it was so far from sufficient, just ignoring the pages; they had to be obliterated entirely. Like all endings. Gilbert had always hated endings._

“Yes.” There was a time, before the war, when Russia and Germany were allies. “I come to say goodbye. Goodbye you.”  
“This might not be goodb...” There was a time, before the war, when Ludwig and Gilbert were friends.  
“You not lie to me. I not lie to you. We say goodbye.”  
_Look me in the eyes Nazi, look me in the eyes and tell me you can watch me die._  
He pictures a purple flame and a white hand snuffing it out.  
“Goodbye, Soviet. Goodbye.” 

Gilbert wakes the world ending in fire and desperate pleas for help.  
Gilbert’s eyes fly open and he shoots straight up from his cot, head swivelling wildly to the left and right as he tries to orient himself somehow. Outside his window he can hear the sound of screaming and explosions, and in the blur of colours swimming across his vision he can distinguish a hedge of solid orange dancing across the walls of his bedroom. _Fire-_  
An explosion from outside rattles the complex and Gilbert instinctively hits the ground. _Shit_ \- He pulls himself to his nightstand and his fingers sweep the top until they hit the thick frame of his glasses. He shoves them onto his face and turns to the orange glare. Fire. Vibrant orange flames of what must be burning gasoline are reflected on his wall from out-  
Gilbert throws himself to the window and looks out across the courtyard in incomprehension.  
The world is ending in Poniatowa. Bodies of German troops litter the slushy yard. Bullets are raining down from a line of remaining troops guarding the barracks and offices, and the prisoners have taken shelter in front of the jeeps, which the Jews are boarding. The Soviets have captured arms and return fire, protecting the escapees. The prisoner’s barracks are engulfed in bright orange flame and, as Gilbert watches, another explosion sends German troops hurtling through the air and the last of the barracks is demolished.  
Gilbert picks up his nightstand and smashes it through the window and the sounds of battle fill his room.  
_“SCHIESSEN SIE DIE RUSSEN!”_  
_“MEHR KUGELN!”_  
_“GEH, GEH JETZT! SIE WERDEN IN DEN OSTEN LAUFEN!”_  
_“GENERAL BIELSCHMIDT!”_ Gilbert’s eyes snap down to a soldier calling him at the bottom of his window. “The Soviets killed our guards in the night! They have guns and they’re taking the jeeps! We must delay them until your brother and his troops arrive or they’ll escape out the Eastern gate!”  
The man runs away and Gilbert falls back from the window.  
The Soviets are... _the Soviets are re-_  
_Badum badum badum badum-_  
Gilbert springs to his closet and rips the uniform over his head. He slams through his door into the hallway and he’s running so fast he can’t feel his feet touching the ground, down the flights of stairs and through long hallways and he skids past the empty racks of weaponry. His hand finds a gun, he straps his rifle to his back, and he’s about to run to join his men when he turns the corner and stops dead in his tracks. At the end of the hallway, clearer than anything Gilbert’s ever been able to see in his life, stands a tall Russian man with a ratted pink scarf.  
There’s a gun in Gilbert's left hand and his finger sits on the trigger. Ivan stands entirely alone in an empty hallway. The metal is cold and heavy.  
Ivan takes a step forward. His eyes drag up from the floor and lock onto Gilbert’s, little glowing circles of purple surrounded by monochrome. His expression is as blank as the pile of un-typed papers stacked next to Gilbert’s desk.  
Gilbert cocks the rifle. Their eyes don’t move. He’s just standing, waiting. Every atom in Gilbert’s body is frozen.  
Ivan raises his gun and shoots Gilbert in the chest. 

A tiny red pinprick appears in the centre of Gilbert’s jacket, and then a river of red blossoms out around it, flooding the fabric, turning his chest redder than the red in his eyes. In shock, Gilbert breaks Ivan’s gaze. His head falls and his eyes drink in the sight of his saturated uniform.  
Gilbert’s heart beats frantically and it has nothing to do with the bullet lodged between his ribs.  
A hand comes to hold his chest and he opens his mouth and pictures that little purple flame and he laughs.  
Gilbert’s knees crumple and he falls to the ground.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one took a while. My apologies for that! But here it is. I actually wrote two versions of this story. The earlier one (which I made my very unfortunate friend sit through) was much lighter- but not in the good way. It wasn't overly realistic and the writing was pretty... sad, frankly. Pretty sad. When I added chapter IV, it was part of the story that I hadn't previously written and it really changed the tone of the story (which was good, because that needed to be done) but it did mean that I had a lot of work to do on these next chapters).
> 
> Random note: Poniatowa Prison camp is based (loosely) off of an actual camp in Poniatowa, Poland.


	7. 35 марта 1945

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Short chapter here.  
> Title: 35 March, 1945

It’s time to run now. 

He can hear the voices of his comrades barking orders outside- “ ** _Jews back, soldiers wheel! East, east, drive east!_** ” He needs to go join them in the last of the jeeps before the German reinforcements overwhelm the facility. He needs to lead the caravan out of Poland and across the Soviet border. 200 kilometres away. 13 hours to Moscow.  
Ivan stoops down to his knees over Gilbert’s lifeless body. He can hear the shells pegging the sides of the complex. If he counted the beats of his heart it would be a slow and tedious rhythm. Something is stuck in his throat that’s making it hard to swallow.  
He reaches down into his uniform and his fingers close around a piece of cloth. He pulls the hand back out again and then he leans over Gilbert’s body and pins the Iron cross back in its place on the general’s uniform.  
“Железный крест представляет мужество.” He says.  
**_Bang._** “MACH AUF!”  
There’s a loud bang on the door and Ivan’s head snaps up. _ДерЬмо_. He jumps up from the ground and grabs his gun and, as an afterthought, Gilbert’s. He turns to run, but as a second bang resonates through the hallway, he stops.  
Ivan turns and looks down at Gilbert Bielschmidt for the last time.  
**_Bang._**  
“Goodbye,” He says.  
_**Bang.**_  
_**Bang.**_  
**BOOM.**  
The door slamming into the concrete is enough to throw him off his feet. His hands hit first, then his torso, and as he scrambles to stand a blonde soldier rushes into the room behind him- and stops dead. The others run into him and Ivan uses their confusion to make his escape; shoes slapping on concrete, deer legs stretched to full stride, flying away down the corridor. The adrenaline in the air has a flavour. There’s screaming and the sound of gunshots and he knows he’s been detected, but the doorway is less than a metre...  
Pain explodes in his left hand just as it closes around the handle. He rips it open, throws his body into the opening, and slams the door shut behind him.  
He catches a glimpse of a pair of vibrantly bleu eyes before he turns and races out of the complex.  
In the courtyard of Poniatowa, bullets fall like liquid silver raindrops in a monsoon. German troops pour frantically from the barracks, but it is too late. Ivan is running again, clutching his hand to his chest, screaming in German and Russian as he bursts through the line of German troops. His soldiers are waiting, the prisoners are inside. The Germans have shot out several tires. A small group of prisoners, at first who had chosen to remain for fear of failure, now frantically attempt to pile themselves in the jeeps on top of those already secured inside. Guards from the watchtowers shoot them one at a time as they come into view. The bodies of the fallen, Soviet and German and Jew, are scattered across the courtyard.  
Another explosion somewhere- his leg or his arm or his side, he can’t tell anymore- and then Ivan is being pulled into his jeep and there’s a forward jolt and the sound of spinning tires as the army jeeps skid out of Poniatowa.  
A familiar voice comes to him in a low murmur somewhere near his head. He can feel cold hands on his face and in his hair, tilting his head, prodding something warm and wet and sticky. Through the slit in the canvas he can see through the camp gates. Some of the prisoners were left behind. The Germans shoot them all in a row. 

A hand turns his head and he’s looking out of the windshield. Flurries are blanketing the glass. There are jeeps in front and jeeps behind. Distantly the sound of the engine registers in his ears. 

A hand turns his head. 

He’s done it. 

Something makes contact with his broken skin; he yells. 

Ivan has lead the rebellion of Poniatowa. 

He’s going home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Angst. 
> 
> When I first wrote this story, I had a stupid scene planned out here- a broken, pathetic Ludwig falling on the ground and sobbing at the sight of Gilbert's death.  
> Looking back, I don't think that's how it would go down. Soldiers see a lot of things. And, I said this before- this was kind of the inevitable end, wasn't it? The inevitable end to Gilbert.


	8. Epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> So guess who died for like... a year? Wow. I always intended to finish this [would anyone believe me if I said I've spent all of this time trying to decide what to title this story and I'm still not thrilled with it?]

Stuttgart, Germany, 1956

 

Frost collects in icy tendrils spider-webbing across glassy windows and car doors and any flowers still poking through an otherwise frozen ground. A cold sun shines in a cloudless sky and brings with it a colder breeze that whips through spindly branches and carries the rich, warm smell of fresh _Schokoladebrot_ and _Apfelkuchen_. It’s winter and Germany is cold and the air smells like coming snow so Ludwig burrows into his thick winter jacket and watches his breath puff out of his mouth in clouds of white steam. His feet find his path mechanically, without a need of conscious thought.  
It has been ten years since the end of the war. The arrival of the American troops in Europe dealt a final blow from which Germany could not recover. The allies declared that Germany would be forced to de-militarize, Berlin split into 4 parts to be occupied by the allies to the west and the east to be occupied by the Soviets under the USSR. No money would be given to the Germans to rebuild from the devastation of the war. Life in Germany is hard and Ludwig feels heavy inside, like an iron weight, but the sky is the colour of _Kornblumen_ and children are playing in the street at the end of his apartment block and inside his jacket Ludwig is bundled away from the cold.  
The man who took over Poniatowa Concentration Camp had been tried and hung in Poland. His name was Axel Bauer. Ludwig had met him once, at a party. He drank eight Steins of beer and danced with every woman who spoke to him. Ludwig was the head witness at his trial.  
Following the end of the war, Ludwig had been awarded numerous medals from the Allied Nations for his work as a double agent. In his small kitchen, they sit in a box pushed far back underneath the stove. 

 

Ludwig arrives at two tall, wrought iron gates and stops there, taking a moment to collect his thoughts. A bouquet of Asphodel and red peonies is tucked gingerly in his arm. Ludwig has always loved red flowers. Gilbert would probably think they were stupid. As he pushes open the gate and starts down the footpath toward the center of the cemetery, Ludwig bows his head and breathes the Lord’s Prayer. When his head comes up again, he steps towards Gilbert’s grave- and stops. He is not standing there alone.  
There’s a girl here, certainly no older than he is, leaning down to pay her respects at the foot of his brother’s grave, her hands folded neatly in her lap. A litany of questions fill Ludwig’s mind, but are quickly dismissed. It’s only natural that he would not be the only one who had cause to visit the grave of a soldier. Ludwig approaches slowly, taking care to avoid the crisp patches of ice. He sinks slowly to a knee, giving her as much space as he can, and he leans forward and lays the flowers on his brother’s grave, hoping he’s not disturbing her prayer as he rises once again. As he wipes the dirt from his hands on the side of his coat, he realizes with confusion that there is no prayer to be disturbed. She’s just… staring.  
Ludwig clears his throat very quietly and then almost jumps at the speed she whips her head around. Her eyes are _strikingly_ bleu and she’s nothing short of gorgeous, but her stare is piercing and there’s a hostile look about her that makes the hair rise on the back of Ludwig’s neck.  
“Good morning.” He greets in quiet German. She says nothing. He clears his throat again and resolves to leave her be, looking away from her face to the grass that has grown over Gilbert’s grave. He closes his eyes and silently begins a prayer-  
“Who are you?” Her German is thick with a Russian accent. Like the safety clicking off of a pistol, Ludwig’s heart jumps a beat. Head still lowered, his eyes move slowly from the dirt back up to her pretty face. He fights the memories that surface of a man with purple eyes running out into the snow and disappearing into the distance.  
“I am Ludwig.” He says. She stares at him for a moment. Then she looks back at the grave.  
“You know this man?” She asks. Ludwig almost smiles.  
“Very well, yes.”  
“…” She looks back to the grave again and is silent. Ludwig watches her and feels millions of questions bubbling just under the surface. When it becomes clear that she’s not going to speak again, Ludwig clears his throat.  
“You knew this man?” The little blonde girl nods.  
“There is this grave in my country also.” She says. Ludwig frowns, fixes her with a look.  
“... A grave for Gilbert Beilschmidt?” She looks back at him. Her eyes are so bleu they look purple. It’s reminding him of that man… but he ignores it.  
“Yes. Before today I was not sure. Now I know.” She bends, reaches out and fingers the red petals lying on the ground. “My brother goes to it a lot.” There’s a pause. Ludwig watches her take one of the buds into her hand and crush it.  
“Do you know why?” He asks. The girl frowns and rises quickly.  
“No. But I had hoping you would.” Ludwig is silent. The moment passes slowly, like liquid gold running through an hourglass, and then the girl turns and begins to walk away. Ludwig watches her go. She passes the _Kornblumen_ and _Apfelbäume_ and as she reaches the main road a smooth black car glides around the corner and stops for her to get inside. But it doesn’t pull away. As Ludwig watches with a sense of numb vacuity, the driver’s door opens and out steps a man.  
He’s tall. Very tall. He’s wearing a long black coat and scarf and there’s a _yushanka_ on his head. Little tips of almost white hair stick out from underneath. At first, his back is to Ludwig. But then he turns. The ground beneath Ludwig’s feet disintegrates and all of the sudden the world doesn’t exist anymore, nothing exists except those electric purple eyes.  
A hand rips out the gun, a hand to load the bullets, he steadies his aim-  
_**Crack.**_

 

The bullet buries itself in the tree above Ivan’s head.  
Silence envelopes the cemetery like a blanket.  
Two girls scramble out of the car, the one from earlier and another one with shorter silver hair, but when they find their brother unharmed, they step back and train their purple-eyed gazes to Ludwig. His heart is beating more slowly than it has been in a long time. He can kill them all now, if he wants.  
A snowflake falls in front of his eyes and disappears onto the black material of his gloves. His gun’s still raised but he’s still just staring. Not moving. He can’t.  
If eternity passes between the two of them, Ludwig doesn’t notice it. Then, suddenly, the Russian man moves.  
He turns his body to Ludwig and raises one hand to his forehead. Then he salutes.  
Just like that, he’s gone. The sleek black car glides away.  
Ludwig stands alone in the snow at the foot of Gilbert’s grave. 

 

 **Гилберт Байльшмидт**  
1913-1944  
**Т** ы был цена свободы. **И** я заплатил.


End file.
